Washington • After initially saying they
wouldn’t show, Transportation Security Administration officials are now
expected to testify today before a congressional hearing chaired by
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, one of the agency’s biggest critics.

TSA Administrator John Pistole had declined
to send any of his senior officials to Chaffetz’s Oversight and
Government Reform subcommittee when the Utah Republican refused to sit
those officials on a separate panel from a group suing the agency.

Chaffetz relented halfway through Wednesday’s
hearing and said TSA officials would show and have the witness table
all to themselves.

It promised to be a firework-prone hearing
given Chaffetz’s repeated barbs at the TSA for using the whole-body
imaging machines, which can peer through travelers’ clothes and produce
near-naked images, and what Chaffetz says are invasive pat-downs.